Good Catholic preaching, from Wales.

Monthly Archives: January 2018

Before you decide whether it’s worth reading this blog post or not, there are two things you might want to know about me. The first is that I have a PhD which included rigorous work analysing statistical data. The second is that I have a track record in analysing Catholic statistics across England and Wales: previously on my website but these days I’m working via this blog. Now read on!

How many Catholics are there in England and Wales? That’s not a very straightforward question. First of all, what is it that you are trying to measure?

One possibility is to count “canonical Catholics” – those who are Catholics according to canon law. Once a person is baptised as Catholic, or a person already baptised is formally received into the Catholic Church, that person is “a Catholic”. For a time, there was a provision in canon law that you could defect from the Catholic Faith by a “formal act” – that would be officially joining another religious community or giving official notice that you no longer wanted to be reckoned as a Catholic. But that provision is no longer in canon law; and so of all the souls baptised or received as Catholics, relatively few people have ever left the canonical status of being bound as “a Catholic”.

What we do have easy access to, are the statistics on the number of baptisms which take place and receptions into the Catholic faith. I’m sure an actuary could make some reasonable estimates for the death rate and the immigration and emigration rate of Catholics and, rooted on the solid figures for baptism, we could come to some a reasonable estimate of the number of “canonical Catholics” in England and Wales – but would that be a useful number?

Another quantity we can easily measure is attendance at weekend masses. The bishops have decreed that an annual count should take place over the four weekends of October but this is subject to ambiguity, and may not even be done consistently. Several factors are ill defined:

If October begins on a Sunday, do we start counting that weekend or the following weekend?

If October begins on a Thursday or Friday and contains five weekends, do we omit the first or the last?

Do we count only adults, or children?

If children, do we include babies?

If babies, do we include the unborn babies of visibly pregnant parishioners? (I don’t think anyone seriously would, but theologically, they are also human persons attending Mass.)

Do we omit double-counting persons attending a second Mass that weekend including the priest himself, sacristans, etc?

Even when we resolve the questions of when we count and who should be included, that number will include non-Catholics at Mass for various reasons (supportive parents or spouses, prospective converts) and occasionally those non-regular churchgoers attending a special Mass for family reasons (a baptism at weekend Mass or honouring a Mass intention for a special anniversary). If that parish requires children preparing for First Communion to register attendance for a few months, in a period that runs over October, this will also affect the figures.

But for the rest of this post I’m going to consider a third measure which is significant: those people who, when asked the question, “What religion are you?” would spontaneously say, “I’m a Catholic.” This data isn’t available from the 10-yearly census of the entire population which takes place in the UK: although there has been a religion question, all “Christians” are classed together. Fortunately, there’s also something called the British Social Attitudes Survey. This is based on a much smaller sample but it does ask questions about religion; and it’s possible to log in and search the database to find out how religion tracks with different regions of Great Britain, with the age of the respondents, and so on.

To use the database, you first need to register (it’s free and simple). Once you have logged in, you need to choose the Survey Years you wish to search. Then from the Contents List, choose RELIGION and from that menu, RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION (or for some older datasets, you may need RELIGIOUS OBSERVATION). You need to click the category on “Respondent’s Religion” if you wish to distinguish Catholics from others – this will then appear in the “Working List” on the top left of your screen. You can then choose any other religious or other data you wish to cross-reference with Catholicism, and this will also be added to the Working List.

Next, go to the Working List in the top left corner and click on “R’s religion”. Near the top right corner, click on “CrossTabs”. You can then choose any category on the screen to sort the data, e.g. sex, age, or any additional questions on your Working List. DON’T click “R’s religion” on the right side, which would only cross-reference the data with itself. When you have made your selection, scroll to the bottom of the page and click “View Results”.

The most recent survey accessible is from 2016. It included a question on how often the Respondent attended worship. For the Catholics, 23.3% went at least once a week; 19.5% went once or twice a month; 24.9% went ‘rarely’ (pooling once or twice a year with ‘less often’) and 31.6% of self-declared Catholics ‘never’ attend worship.

Selecting by sex, we see that 6.6% of male respondents and 10.6% of female respondents (across the whole of the UK) self-identified as Catholic; very similar figures occur in the 2015 survey, indicating a consistent likelihood for women rather than men to retain their sense of religious identity (there is no strong reason to assume that fewer boys than girls were baptised).

The highest proportion of Catholics is found in Scotland and NW England, where nearly 14% of the population self-identify as Catholics. Here in Wales, we have the lowest proportion of self-identifying Catholics anywhere in Great Britain, with only 5.0%.

Within the Archdiocese of Cardiff, the Mass Attendance reported across the diocese was 14,497 in 2016 (the most recent year for which statistics are available), down from 18,046 in 2009. Across the whole Welsh Province, deducting parish figures from Herefordshire, Mass Attendance in 2016 was 25,890. With an estimated national population of 3.168 million, this makes the Catholics actually attending Mass 0.82% of the total population; less than one in five of those who self-identify as Catholic therefore attend Mass frequently.

The database does not allow filtering by three variables at the same time, so it’s not possible to cross-check how many of the Catholics who report weekly attendance are in Wales – and that level of refinement would probably draw on such small numbers of respondents that the result would begin to lose accuracy. But across all members of any religion in Wales, only 10.2% claim to attend worship weekly or more often.

When religious identity is binned by age (15-24, 25-34 etc.) we find that across Great Britain, for those identifying as Anglicans or “other Christians”, the older you are, the more likely you are to identify as such. But for Catholics, this peaks in the 45-54 group with 10.4% identifying as Catholic. For all other ages 25-74, roughly 9% call themselves Catholic, and for the youngest group, only 5.3% of 15-24 year olds label themselves as such.

Across all religions, when attendance at worship is binned by age group, there is a surprising spike where 18.9% of 35-44 year olds attend weekly or more often. Every other age bin 15-64 fluctuates around 11% weekly attendance by little more than one percentage point. It would be fascinating to explore the reasons – liberation from child-care, mid-life crisis, or immigration of observant professionals?

There is a great deal more data available; just in the 2016 dataset, it is possible to analyse Catholics according to education, employment, political stance and marital status. The religious questions asked in other years include belief in the Devil, anti-religious prejudice and experience of conversion, support for faith schools, and politicians’ religious viewpoints or lack thereof. Here is a vast and free resource for researchers to delight in. Enjoy!

Before I became a priest, I worked closely with a man who was a full-time evangelist, promoting the Catholic faith across and beyond the British Isles. His voicemail messages were unmistakable. “Mr Leyshon – I need to talk to you! Please call me urgently!”

I soon learned that for my friend, “urgent” was his default setting. From anyone else, such a phone call would foreshadow a dying daughter or a blazing building. For this man, it just meant we needed to put a date in a diary. It’s easy to over-use the word “urgent”. And yet… today’s Bible readings are steeped in a sense of urgency.

Despite hiding for three days in the belly of a whale-sized fish, Jonah finally carried out God’s command and preached that Nineveh would be destroyed. Amazingly – perhaps hinting that this is more story than history – the people respond immediately and wholeheartedly, mending their ways, and keeping a fast. When Our Lord walks up to Peter and Andrew, and then James and John, they immediately down tools and follow his footsteps. The Bible doesn’t record what Zebedee thought when his sons abandoned him on the spot – and in that culture, respect for a parent counted for a great deal! There must have been something about the person of Jesus, God-in-the-flesh, which was overwhelmingly attractive, even when he hadn’t yet worked miracles or gathered a band of followers with him.

Last Wednesday was the feast day of St Anthony of the Desert. 300 years after Christ, he heard the Bible being read: Jesus invited a rich young man to sell everything and follow him. These words struck Anthony so powerfully that he did just that, moving into the Egyptian desert, first as a hermit, then as Abbot over the community of monks inspired to join him.

But what about us? There may be someone here today who is free to choose a new path in life, who can join a monastery or a convent, become a hermit or enter seminary to try for the priesthood. If you know that God’s voice is whispering to you right now, stop struggling against it, and have a chat with me (or another person you trust), about taking the next step. Whatever you’re waiting for, it won’t get better if you don’t do something about it!

For most of us, though, we’ve made the big decisions already. We’ve chosen to start a family – or not – and many of us have chosen a career in which we’ve invested a great deal of time and training. Yet within our chosen lifestyle, God does not stop calling us. And this can be irritating! If we take God’s presence in our lives seriously, we’ll find ourselves asking deep questions: How can I know what God wants ME to do? I wish I could be sure I’m on the right track…

Finding out might not be as hard as you think! Hasidic Jews tell the story of Rabbi Zusya, who said this: At the end of this life, when I am judged, the question I will be asked is not “Why were you not Moses?” but – “Why were you not Zusya?” The Rabbi understood that everyone has a call. God wants you to be yourself! And to be truly yourself, that means making the most of the gifts and talents God has given you. Blessed John Henry Newman understood this too, in his famous poem “God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another… He knows what he is about!”

Sometimes we need a bit of help to see just what our gifts and talents are. You may have undertaken exercises in your workplace to find out what your Meyers-Briggs personality type is, or to work out your role in a team according to the Belbin model – and there are many similar tests. These results tell you something about yourself as a person – what do they suggest about the role that would be right for you in your parish community? I can’t give you all a test right now, but I can suggest some simple questions:

With unlimited resources, what would you do for God?

What is it, that you love to do?

How can you combine talents and passions to achieve your calling?

In a recent survey, 53% of Americans did not strongly agree “that in my parish, I have an opportunity to do what I do best”. Often we get drafted to help with a project because a parish is a small community where “somebody has to do it”. Church can be like one of those military movies where the captain asks for a volunteer and everyone else in the ranks take one step backwards! But in the best church communities, everyone offers their services and then there’s no need for anyone to be a square peg in a round hole – there’s enough slack for everyone to find a way in the parish to do what you do best.

Perhaps, in the past, managers have encouraged you to do something about “addressing your weaknesses” but surely it’s better to develop your strengths? We can acquire skills and knowledge, but perform best when these enhance our innate talents – and every single one of us has some set of natural talents. That doesn’t mean just sports or arts – “talents” are anything we’re wired to do well. We are not called to be “well rounded” – God didn’t make us that way, and a ball won’t stay put where it’s meant to be. God made each one of us with a unique set of things that we do do well, and God is calling is, urgently, to use them for the work of Christ – to love our neighbour and to bring everyone on Earth under the Reign of God.

St Paul’s strange advice about not laughing or mourning came from his belief that Christ was about to return and bring the world to an end. We know now that didn’t happen, so we face a different challenge – how do we use the gifts we’ve been given to live “in the world but not of the world”, following Christ? One way of doing that is being sure that when offered a choice of jobs, choose the one which plays to your strengths, not the one which one has most prestige. The happiness of getting higher rank will fade when you become used to it, but the joy of doing something you shine at will be renewed every day you work! And what’s true of the world is also true of the church. If you are already volunteering, are you in the right role? Perhaps there’s something that you and other parishioners can agree you’d be better at doing instead, and there’s no shame in asking for a change. In fact, if it helps you become the best version of yourself, God might be asking you to follow him by making that change right now. Urgently!

With thanks to inspiration from Mgr Bill Hanson, quoted in the Catholic Edition of Living Your Strengths, and other ideas from the authors.

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The wise men went to a great deal of effort to offer their gifts to the infant King. I wonder what motivated them?

There are all sorts of reasons we might give gifts. It can be a sign of friendship. Or we might be doing so out of duty because the office has organised a “secret Santa”. There again, we might give gifts because we expect to receive something in return. Were the wise men hoping to have places of honour in the court of the new-born King? Or was it a pure act of love? Whatever their motivation, they were willing not only to give expensive gifts but to expend a lot of time and trouble doing so.

The gifts we should think about today are not gifts of money or material things, but the time and talents which God has entrusted to us. The Bible leaves us in no doubt that God has high expectations of what we should do with such gifts. Is God saying: “work as my slaves, or I will punish you”? No! But God is reminding us that actions have consequences. As the philosophy tutor at my seminary once said, “If you consume too much of the blood of Christ, you will get drunk and you should be breathalysed!” If you’ve eaten too many Christmas puddings, you will have gained weight – that’s not a punishment for overeating, it’s just the way the universe works. Our eternal home is heaven, a place of pure self-giving love, and we can only enter heaven when we are a good fit for this – as St John of the Cross once said, “at the evening of life, we shall be judged on our love”.

The Catholic Church’s job is to invite each one of us to become a saint, and to train us how to live saintly lives. Our church’s task is not to produce nice people, or people with hearts of gold, or people with good intentions; our mission is to produce saints, people of heroic virtue. People like St Teresa of Kolkata, who “give until it hurts” and keep on giving. People like the wise men, willing to go to extreme lengths to offer their gifts to God. The trouble is, we behave more like football fans than saints. Fans are proud of their team, they turn up every weekend, sing their team songs and feel the joy and the pain when their team wins or loses. But they don’t get involved on the pitch. And then what happens? The Catholic Church has been likened to a soccer game, with 22 people running round doing all the work and another 22,000 cheering them on from the stands. But Jesus isn’t looking for fans. He’s looking for followers, people willing to do his work on earth.

In my first parish, I preached many sermons where the message was “get involved”, and one day a parishioner came up to me and said “If you preach one more sermon about ‘getting involved’, I’m leaving this church.” Now he was a man with a disability. Maybe he felt that he couldn’t do any of the practical things I was inviting people to do. I hope he realised that those of us unable to get involved with our hands can still get involved by our prayers. But those of us who can do more, should do more.

We have barely enough catechists for our future needs to pass on the Catholic faith to adults and children. Later this month there’s a 2-year course beginning called the “Catholic Certificate in Religious Studies“. It’s a good course for anyone who is a catechist now or wants to be one in future. Could you study now, so you are ready to volunteer in the parish in two years’ time? We would gladly pay your course fees and even help with transport costs if that’s a deal-breaker for you.

More immediately, we need Welcomers. Did you know that most people decide whether they “like” a church based on their first impressions after they have been inside for a couple of minutes? If you regularly arrive at Mass more than 5 minutes early, what’s stopping you taking a turn at smiling at those who follow you through the door and helping hand our hymnbooks or newsletters? It’s a great opportunity for whole families, children can help too alongside parents. In two weeks’ time, I want to meet all our current welcomers after Mass, and I’d like to train some new welcomers at the same time. That could be you.

Today, we re-commission those who do serve in our community. Many of you will stand up in the next few minutes to renew your willingness to serve. I want to thank you for your service – but remember, you are not doing it for me, your parish priest, as a favour. You are doing it for Christ, as a follower, and to help your fellow parishioners become saints. But some of us will not be commissioned today. So I put to you: are you a fan or a follower? If you have a serious illness, or have your hands full with a small child, the parish expects nothing of you except your prayers. For the rest of you, imagine what would happen if you stepped forward to help our parish flourish? How much stronger would we be with your gifts?

There are good works we can do in the local community, as part of organisations which aren’t explicitly Christian. But today, I invite you to focus on your parish – because in your parish, there is no hiding place. No-one else is going to take communion to your sick brothers and sisters. No-one else is here today who can act as a welcomer, usher, collector, reader or minister of Holy Communion at this Holy Mass. If you have the gifts to do any of these things, God expects you to say “yes”. And if you are a visitor here today, and you’re not already volunteering for something in your home parish, I charge you to go to your parish priest next time at your home Mass and ask: “What can I do to help?” Don’t wait to be asked. Those who are truly wise already know that our King deserves our very best.

So arise, shine out, people of St Philip Evans! Become what God has gifted you to be, and you will set Wales on fire!